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Page 29-12 - Why rivet stuff to side skin before clecoing it to fuselage?

iamtheari

Well Known Member
Page 29-12 has you rivet about 1/3 of the holes in two ribs, 3/4 of the holes in one stiffener, and a handful of holes in the side plate and upper drag fitting to the side skin before putting the skin on the fuselage. Is there a reason for this? It seems like back-riveting would be the way to do it but I have had much better results riveting things in place rather than backriveting.
 
Page 29-12 has you rivet about 1/3 of the holes in two ribs, 3/4 of the holes in one stiffener, and a handful of holes in the side plate and upper drag fitting to the side skin before putting the skin on the fuselage. Is there a reason for this? It seems like back-riveting would be the way to do it but I have had much better results riveting things in place rather than backriveting.

I deviated from Van's sequence here pretty much as you described: back-riveted everything working my way out from the upper drag fitting with the skin on the fuselage. Came out neat, no pillowing. Front-riveting always results in a bit of warped optics on these large flat sheets.

Back-riveting is much easier with two people. Cleco everything together then throw a bucking party for your EAA chapter. ;)
 
Sorry, I wrote that in a confusing way. To do things in the order presented in the plans, back riveting seems mandatory. I prefer not to back rivet if I can help it, especially with AD4 rivets. Good thing I learned that lesson on something you won?t see if you?re not looking for it. :)

Putting things on the plane and then riveting them from the front would be my preference. But if there is a reason to rivet these things together off the plane, I will do that instead.
 
My experience and recommendations from more experienced builders has been, in order of preference: squeeze first, back-rivet second, conventional rivet last.
YMMV. ;)
 
To do things in the order presented in the plans, back riveting seems mandatory.

Not mandatory, but preferred. See step 8 on 29-14: "Back rivet the flush rivets where practical."

You can convince yourself by taking a highly polished sheet of scrap and riveting it to a rib of sorts using the two different methods. The back-riveted joint will turn out mirror-flat, the front-riveted one will always warp the image toward the rivet similar to under-dimpled skin.

None of this makes any difference from the structural strength perspective. :cool:
 
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